Choose your last words
by flyawaymockingjay
Summary: We've all heard Katniss' story. What if we took it a different way? Clove. The female tribute from District 2 in the 74th annual Hunger Games, her story about her and the boy tribute from District 2 and her words about the games. This is her story.


**QUICK NOTE**: _until stated otherwise, this gone from Clove's perspective. I know it doesn't mention her name, but that's the whole point. I didn't want to mention her name until the next chapter. If nothing make's sense, I'm sorry. I wrote this at almost 5 am, and I had ideas, and I jotted them down. __And if you didn't know already, the blonde boy is Cato. So yeah! Enjoy!_

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Seven years ago. That's all I remember. All I remember was seven years ago. The training center for District 2 had been occupied for some ceremony given to the students that we're being taken from school and off to work in the factories about a mile off in the district. I remember my mother saying for the first time that she was proud of me for wanting this. She said something that amounted to her 'having pride in someone actually'. I never got what she meant by that. All I know was that I was going to become a career whether I really liked it or not. My mother's plans we're always for me to become a career, even at the early ages as of 3. I remember her talking about it to my father one day, who said that it was a good idea if I we're a little bit taller and a little bit more lean than I was. I was small, I was just a small 3 year old girl who hadn't grown into her body, hadn't really grown in weight, but ate almost everything in sight. I never grew much. In fact, I rarely grew at all. By the time I was nine I was barely 5 feet tall, while everyone else had grown almost 2 more inches every week.

It was the first day of training. I was 8 and I accepted the fact that we had to go into the masonry building to practice our skills for the day instead of the nicely equipped center. The masonry building was the title itself. But it was really for all the men and women in our district who were out of a job in a factory to go and attend seminars about the work life, and the struggles it will take to get back on your feet. Some days, they'd use it for the career training, that's if the training center wasn't always being used. Usually the only reason it was being used was because they we're taking students into the center, to show them what they are missing out, or have missed out, and now they have to go build and make bricks. If you wanted to, you could call it a multi-purpose building, but in District 2, what the mayor calls a building is what it's called from then on. I took a tour of the center before I actually became a career itself. All I really remember was that it had some pretty nice things. I remember seeing people throwing knives at targets like the speed of bullets, people fighting each other with such angst and so much coordination that every move looked like it was choreographed. People throwing spears faster and much farther than I had ever seen a spear go. It all seemed fascinating to me… at the time.

My mother had walked with me from our house to the building. I was never really good at making friends. In fact, I never really had any friends to be honest. I had one friend. That was it. But she rarely ever talked to me after she started making tons of other friends. My mother had decided to stay with me until the building had opened for the instructor to come out and welcome the kids and parents. My mother's excitement was kind of overwhelming at the time. She was way more excited than I was, and half the time it was unusual for a parent to be so proud and so excited about their kids becoming a career. Becoming a career meant you were going to lose your life, or if you were the victor, remain scarred for the rest of your life.

I stood there and looked around at the many kids who stood in groups along the side of the building, laughing, talking and taking sips of their water bottles. My mother was the only parent for about 40 yards. But I didn't want to look like a fool and stand alone. My eyes wandered about the kid's, as their heads turned on a swivel. There we're about 19 kids, including me. My eyes caught a boys, a boy with blonde hair and eyes as blue as the sky. He stared at me, which was strange for me because I wasn't used to anyone really staring at me, especially a boy. He could tell I was new. He started to walk over to my mother and I as the trainer walked out with heavy eyes, and a sigh that could be heard from all the way across town as he swung his head and body through the door. "Welcome, welcome." He said in a non-pleasant sounding voice. You could obviously tell this man didn't want to be here, along with maybe 5 of the kids in the class. "Yeah, okay. So here's the plan-" he hesitated as he looked around. He was cut off as his eyes caught on me. My eyes opened a little wide, but they closed back down when he started to speak. His eyes still trained on me, "Newbies. ah. We have new people! Like… you." Me? "Me?" I spoke softly and pointed my finger towards my face as my mother turned towards me with a smile still remained on her face. My finger remained pointing as the instructor laughed heavily. "Of course it's you! You're the only new one here!" And I realized he was right. Everyone's eyes had been trained at me, until the instructor had called for everyone's attention once more. My mother bent down to my level and held both my arms as her smile still stood on her face. She sighed and looked down, then looked up into my eyes. My mother was fairly small. She had brown hair, with a gold overtone in the back. Her eyes we're brown, and she always wore red lipstick to outline the witness of her teeth. She always tried to make herself look like she was rich, when in reality, we we're struggling for money more than anyone. Sometimes I thought we we're going to have to purchase tesserae, but we ended up getting through it. My Mother eye's trained on me as she spoke. "You're going to do great, princess. Go for the knives or something sharp. You'll be fine. I'm proud of you." I nodded to my mother as she smirked then stood up and kissed the top of my head, as I closed my eyes as she did. My father would have never done this. He'd stand there and just look at me. As it would be time to go, he'd nod and say, 'Do well, for your own safety'. Then walk away.

I didn't listen to a word the instructor said after he had made called me out in front of the trainees. He talked on about how speed and agility was going to take place today. Since we didn't have our center at our hands, we were going to run. After running for 20 straight minutes, I didn't think my body could handle anything else, but apparently it was going to have to. The instructor brought out a balance beam, that seems so narrow not even a blade of grass could balance on it. Of course, I didn't make it far on that either, maybe a half of a foot, and then fell straight to the ground. Everyone laughed at me, but the blonde boy that I saw earlier that day. He gave everyone a look of disgust, like 'they shouldn't be laughing because it wasn't even that funny' look. Everyone naturally did the same as I did on the beam. Fall off at almost half a foot, and then try over and over and not succeed. Each time the blonde boy would laugh at them, but he didn't laugh at me. Somehow I thought there was some good in this.

The class was ending, and all the girls formed a group, and the guys kind of hung around an area on the stage in the building. The building had a stage with old wood that creaked every time you walked on it. And floors that were made the play basketball and during the winter sometimes ice hockey, if you had the proper skates and sticks and the proper way of knowing how to ice the floor. I won't get into that. But the blonde boy sat by himself, drinking his water. The boys who sat by the stage nudged him to come over and talk, but he didn't want to. For the next 5 minutes, he aimless drank and looked around the building, as I studied him to see what he was doing.

The instructor motioned for us to go home. All the kids ran out of the building and onto the outside as I remained slow at moving, still looking at the boy, who also took his time walking through. He started walking to the exit door that was to the right of him on the other side of the stage that lead to the center of the buildings around it, as I headed for the opening door to the masonry building. I turned my head forward when I heard him speak. The echo of his voice boomed throughout the building as I turned around right as he spoke. "Hey." I turned around and looked around, there was obviously no one in sight, but I thought I'd point to myself, again. "Me?" He laughed at me, as he put his head down. "There's no one else in this building, of course it's you." His voice still boomed, while mine echoed slightly, just enough for someone to hear. He sighed, as I looked at him strange, waiting for an answer for what he said hey for. He looked down as I got tired of waiting. I started to head out the door before his words stopped me. "Go for the knives." He said. I turned, "Really?" I proclaimed as I let out a breath while speaking. "Yeah, they'll be good for you, trust me." He said heading out the door that made a creaking noise just as the stage did. I nodded to the air and the empty building before getting ready to turn around and walk out the door back to home. Just then I heard his voice again, before his head popped through the door. "Just remember. Knives," I laughed slightly before I finally turned myself to the door and walked out. A smile on my face the size of Pluto remained until I got home. My mother had asked why, and I told her that I just had a decision on what I wanted to have strength in, in training. She looked at me curiously and asked. "Knives," I said, smiling once again, remembering the boy.

The boy came back once or twice to the classes I had. I guess him and I never really saw each other because of our age differences. Usually training was set up that way, but to see him once when every age group got together and did priority training, that's when I saw him. I never got to know him personally. I never even knew his name honestly. He was always known as blonde boy. I knew he had strengthened in swords. And that he was blonde, and his eyes were as blue as the sky. That's all I knew about him. I rarely saw him around town too. It was weird. He just… vanished from thin air whenever I saw him other than training. That's all I remember of the blonde boy.

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**AUTHORS NOTE, ending: **_so! Next chapter's the reaping. I just wanted to get into kind of Clove's life more. About her parents and how they thought so low of her. I know her mother expected a lot out of her, but she still kind of accepted the fact that her daughter was going to die if she ever went into the games. Her father I made into just a douche, but we won't go from there. And just her meeting of Cato. I turned her into a sappy lover at the beginning, but she won't always be like that. Promise! so, reviews? c: I promise you it'll get more suspenseful!_


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